The Puffer Forum

One of the best things about having a marine aquarium is playing "WTF is growing in my tank," well, we get to do that again. I've seen this thing on my rock before near my mushroom but never really knew what it was. Couldn't get a good picture of it but now that the rock is covered in coralline it really stands out. It moves around every now and then, and last night I touched it with a brush and it zipped back inside a crevice in the rock. I can get more pictures if neccessary. Any ideas?

Aptasia & cyano.

That thing is an aiptasia??? It looks so much different from the other ones. The other ones I had had long, sweeping tentacles. This thing is disc shaped with short tentacles.

They get to look all kinds of ways.

Apparently so! This explains where all of these smaller aiptasia's are coming from, though. I will murder him. Also, the purple stuff blew right off the rocks when I shot it with my turkey baster, so, yep - cyano. It had me fooled - there is coralline under the red slime that is the same color. There's no fish in my tank at the moment so this battle should be easier. I've been planning to replace my biowheel filter with another powerhead - think I'll go ahead and do that.

What happened to your GSP?

Died. Not sure why.

What is cyano and how is it bad? There might be some in mine and I don't know it! Also sorry to hear about your gsp you should get another toby! You and Camille were what encouraged me to get Lila and I love her so thanks!

Cyanobacteria are an ancient group of microbes, and they are among the best biofilm producers known, As they are photosynthetic themselves and are willing to incorporate other bacterial forms into their films, they are masters at biofilm production and are difficult to eliminate once established. Paleobiologists consider them important by their contribution to the oxygen content of this planet's early atmosphere.

Cyanobacteria is ugly, nasty, invasive as all get out, sucks oxygen out of the water, and is a huge pain in the moneymaker.

They're also the reason that the sky is blue. In the ocean, they're a good thing. In our aquariums, not so much.

Hadla - I do miss Camille... probably why I never took her picture down from my avatar. I had thought about doing a Toby again, once I get this cyano outbreak under control. Or, I might even try another GSP. Dunno, haven't made up my mind yet. I want to move my aquarium to a new part of the house first though, so I have some time to think about it.

Cyanobacteria actually add O2 as they are photosynthetic, but that O2 is captured beneath the biofilm so long as it is undisturbed. But it does not "suck the O2 from the tank water".

lol thanks for the info, rtr, and thank you for putting it into words I understand, scorpio! is that the only tank you have? if so, you must be the only person on here with one tank!

It is the only tank I have, yes. In a couple years I'll be looking to buy my own house; if that happens I'll be looking at a big tank so I can have the porcupine puffer I always wanted.

You definitely are the only person, it took me all of 3 months to graduate from one 15l BioOrb to two 210l tanks

Addictive little buggers.